Withdrawal
by Melted Flames
Summary: As I return to crying, I have to wonder if this is goodbye… I know that the chances of me seeing Sasuke-kun again are slim, but the chances of him being sane are nearly negative." Sakura tries to overcome recent events. Warning: SPOILERS FOR 483


_Withdrawal_

**WARNING:** **SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 483**

Note: This isn't as good as 'Memories', so if you haven't read it yet, I recommend that you do. It's on my profile and is the only suitable story that I've written – the rest are garbage.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I never have and never will.

--

My feet are useless as I finally enter my apartment. I healed Sasuke-kun's companion –I'm still unsure of her name – upon arriving in Konoha and completed the necessary paperwork; it's finally time for me to rest. Sleep overcomes me just seconds after I lie down in bed, not even bothering to let me change.

I don't know how long I've slept, but when I wake it is night again. Despite rolling over thousands of times, I can't sleep to fall asleep: my mind is awake. The events of late rush though my mind in an impossibly short amount of time.

_Sasuke-kun_… _he tried to kill me… I failed to kill him… he's so different now… what's become of him? _Although it's completely nonsensical, my heart still palpitates when I think of him… how idiotic. Why can't I shake this feeling? Even now, after he almost killed me, I'm making up excuses for why he did what he did, reasons for his clear insanity.

Suddenly, an impossible wave of guilt crashes over me: I didn't save him! I couldn't save him. Because of my weakness, because of my cowardice, Sasuke-kun is living a lie. I've had so many opportunities to fix this… so many chances that I've ignored. It's too late now, even I know that. He tried to kill me _before_ he knew my intentions, there's no way that he'd let me near him now.

He can I claim to love him when I can't even help him? I can picture the old Sasuke-kun holding me responsible for his current state. "You claimed to love me," he's saying, "yet you're too foolish to do something about what I've become. You're too selfish to change me." I must be going crazy.. No, I _am_ crazy, I have to be. How could a sane person love a villain? How can these things actually be happening to me? I'm not a character in a movie, I'm not some made up girl from a book, I'm real. Yet the boy I love is a runaway who I need to change; I would do anything for this boy, even after he tried to take my life…

Why am I letting myself go over what happened? Why can't I just forget? I know that, in all honesty, I should remember this as both a reminder and a warning: Sasuke-kun is dangerous. Oh, but it would be so much easier just to forget; it would be a miracle if I could forget the way that he looked at me when Kakashi-sensei got there… why won't these images go away?!

A single tear rolls down my cheek as I realize that I didn't even suspect his attempted assassination – no, not assassination, that makes it sound like he actually thought I was important, it makes this whole thing sound premeditated – I didn't suspect him of trying to kill me... I just thought that he was going to knock me out again. Part of me is pleading that it was all a mistake, 'I misunderstood him, that he really was only trying to knock me out. Maybe if I hadn't turned around, I would have only been made unconscious; Kakashi-sensei just came at the wrong moment,' it defends.

My single tear is evened out by another from my other eye. Why was I such a coward? A kunai? That's all that I could think of? It was so simple to put Kiba, Sai, and Lee to sleep, why was it so hard to kill Sasuke-kun? There were so many thing that I could have done… I could have distracted him, I could have attacked while he was killing that girl, I could have sent a kagebunshin… why am I so dumb? A few more tears fall, but I still have my emotions in check. 'Emotions are signs of weakness. A true ninja shares no emotions.' The words repeat themselves over and over again in my mind, but they have no weight. 'So what?' my mind argues, 'obviously I'm not a true ninja! I couldn't even kill him!'

The walls closing my emotions are crumbling; I was dealing with the few sensations that had dug under them, they already knew the way out. Can I deal with the flood that approaches? 'Sometimes you just need to let go,' I imagine Tsunade-shishou saying. I want to rebut, but I know that my answer will be shot down.

I let go.

The tears race down my face in seconds. _'I trusted him!'_ my mind screams. The pain cripples me as I fall onto my bed.

If I were capable of thinking logically, I would realize that I should have seen this coming - these things were so predictable! But what use is predictability when I can't change the result?

What have I done in life to deserve this? How can I possibly have committed a wrong so important that this is my recompense? What did I do to deserve a heart so broken? No… my heart isn't broken, it's missing - Sasuke-kun has torn it from me… and I deserved every bit of it.

Being in love has its risks, and this is one of them. A broken heart isn't so bad: a broken heart will heal. When Sasuke-kun left Konoha, my heart broke into dozens of pieces, but they were clean cuts: they healed with time. When we tried to bring him back to Konoha, it shattered and crumbled. But, when I realized that he could be saved if I killed him, my heart began to heal again. "I'm going to crush the leaf." Those words broke my freshly mended mass of emotions. It wasn't even his trying to kill me that ripped my heart from me -no that only mashed it into a pulp – it was that laugh. That horrible cacophony of arrogance and insanity ripped the shreds of my heart from my body and left me as I am now: broken and empty.

I'm aware of how ridiculous I'm being, but that doesn't stop my sobbing. Somehow, my hair smells like Sasuke-kun… I can smell his clean and earthy scent on the pink tangles that are pressed against my face. Is there a way to keep someone's scent forever? Can I bottle this as a reminder of him?

My desperateness causes me to sob even harder as I try to memorize this smell; I have a feeling that this will be the closest I ever get to him again.

I cry until I run out of tears, then I just sob. My sobs are starting to turn into wails of pain that threaten to grow larger and louder as I shake uncontrollably. Mixtures of noises that may or may not constitute words occasionally leave my mouth; I recognize only two: Sasuke-kun and doshite.

I neither eat nor drink until I vomit from dehydration, at which point I get a glass of water from my kitchen, the view from the window setting off my hysteria yet again: it's team seven's old meeting bridge. I spill the water all over myself as I cry, but I really don't care.

As I return to crying, I have to wonder if this is goodbye… I know that the chances of me seeing Sasuke-kun again are slim, but the chances of him being sane are nearly negative. My hopes and dreams are gone. I may still love Sasuke-kun – I could never stop loving him - but nothing will ever come of it. Even if the impossible happened, if he became sane again and returned to Konoha, he'd be killed. And if he were somehow spared, he'd still have nothing to do with me.

My sorrow changes into anger as I realize that I will forever be single. It's petty, but it's infuriating; I am hopelessly in love with someone who is destined to be killed. This love is a cliff's edge: I can either jump or stay where I am – there are no other options. Some unknown force has placed me here, and I hate it for doing so.

I will never be a mother, I will never be married, I will never even be kissed. Damn Sasuke-kun and his perfection, damn his flaws too – I dream of them equally. Sasuke-kun has damned himself to a life of pain and hatred (or has Itachi done this? I can't figure these things out anymore.) but he has damned me to a life of solitude and self-hatred.

Why am I so stubborn in my love? Why can't I close the book of Sasuke-kun and open a new one? Plenty of people have expressed their interest in me, why don't I think of them? Why aren't they the ones that haunt my every dream?

The sound of a knock on my door brings me out of my current thought-stream, but I ignore it.

"Haruno Sakura, if you're in there, the hokage requests your presence." Shishou can wait. "Whatever, she's probably not there. Just leave the note," the voice says in a more quiet voice to his companion. I hear my mail slot open and let a document calling for a meeting with Tsunade-shishou join a pile of letters under it.

What have I been doing? How long have I been crying? Why do I want to continue drowning in my self-pity and sorrow? I push myself up shakily and attempt sitting. Most of me wants to go back to crying, but a smaller voice from within speaks up: 'you're strong," it says 'you can deal with this. Go back to work, go back to helping Konoha.' I know that it's right, but how do I go back to normal with no heart? 'Stop being so shallow," it commands 'Use this as an advantage! Just think of what you can get out of this!" Yet again, it's right. I can just channel my sorrow into work; I can use this negative energy for good…

As I step out of bed, I realize that I have been horribly selfish in my sorrow. Naruto will suffer greater than I; he was close enough to Sasuke-kun for the two of them to be brothers. And Kakashi-sensei, he was like a father to them… Kakashi-Sensei! How can I have been so self-centered?! Kakashi-sensei could be dead now! I mutter a prayer for Kakashi to any god that will still have me. "Let him beat Sasuke-kun," I say "Let him survive this battle with no guilt." Will the kami listen? Maybe, maybe not. I haven't been to a shrine or temple in so long that the gods have probably forgotten about me… assuming that they knew in the first place.

I step into the shower to clean off the built up sweat and dirt from my mission and the tears from my emotional breakdown. I feel as if I'm washing away something more; something invisible but important. I scrub away this unknown substance with such vigor that my skin becomes a darker pink than my hair.

When I step out of the shower and think of what I'm going to do with the remainder of my day, I realize that I've completed something significant: I have gone though an emotion withdrawal. While Sasuke-kun will always remain where my heart should be, he shall no longer command my life.


End file.
